In the end, it was only eight hours, and even they were not the horrors they might have been. But only because Rhea rose heroically to the occasion, and almost singlehandedly carried the group on her shoulders, quelling negative emotions by sheer force of personality. She changed subjects, she suggested topics, she refereed potential disputes before they could occur, and she took upon herself any housekeeping task that might otherwise have brought Rand and Duncan into contact.
Eventually she bullied them all into the proper bomb shelter spirit. She told them endless stories, some pirated and some improvised. She cajoled Rand into singing the songs he sang best. Duncan reached back into the memory banks of a childhood in circumstances so primitive (by contemporary Terran standards) that he had frequently been deprived of amusement facilities, and pulled out game after game that could be played without tools or power. Before long Colly too was making her unique contribution: giggling. Not long after her usual bedtime, she fell asleep, but a child's snores and other sleepsounds are nearly as uplifting as her giggles. And it is difficult for a conversation to turn to an argument if there is a child sleeping in the room. Before long, Rand had regained his original impression of Duncan as a decent enough young man—just needed a little seasoning among Terrans to learn the fine points of good manners, that was all. After all, Rhea seemed to like him, and she had good people radar.
Good spirits might not have lasted, but luck was with them: just as group morale peaked, the locker door opened and a loud voice began reassuring them that everything was fine. They managed to silence it before it could wake Colly, and emerged smiling together. Duncan had the grace to make his excuses and leave nearly at once. By the time Rand had finished seeing him out the door, Rhea had put Colly into her sleepsack and gone to their bedroom; he put the suite to sleep and joined her. He was quite tired; the only things he intended to do before sleeping were check to make sure their AIs were still sentient, and make sure that if there were any casualties, no one he knew was on the list.
But by the time he reached the bedroom, Rhea was more than halfway out of her clothes.
"Uh . . ." he managed to get out before the process was complete, and then she advanced on him like a cloud of electrons and protons. His own clothing was no protection at all. His next syllable was some five minutes later, and was even less spellable; he repeated it several times over the next few minutes, with increasing volume and decreasing period. The last iteration was a shout, which by then seemed to him to contain all the information the universe out there desperately needed to hear—until he heard Rhea shriek the message's other half in harmony with him.
Before he fell asleep, he regained enough intelligence to compose a platitude, something along the lines of "Out of adversity comes fortitude." Maybe . . . just maybe . . . Rhea was going to snap into it.
* * *
Talking work with Jay wasn't as much fun as it had been; with four days left before the premiere of Kinergy (as they had decided to name the new work) Jay had too much else to do, Rand had too little else to do, and there was nothing to discuss together but things that might go wrong. And the incessant ego-struggles and other personal frictions among the dancers—but Rand hated that particular topic. He had himself pointedly chosen a field that allowed him to work alone when it suited him.
So he had no digression to propose when Jay said, "How's it going with Rhea, bro?"
He decided to tackle it. "You know, last week I'd have said it was fucking hopeless. But it's the funniest thing: somehow that flare emergency seems to have turned things around. At least a little, anyway. She came through it like a trouper, never complained once, never even frowned—and as soon as it was over, so was she: all over me. We haven't had a session like that since . . . Jesus, I don't know, but whenever it was, it was back on Earth. It felt . . . it felt like christening the Shimizu, christening space. Do you know what I mean?"
Jay nodded at once. "Ethan and I christened High Orbit that way, once."
Rand winced away from the thought. Obviously the event had not cemented Ethan's commitment to living in space very effectively. "I mean, it's like when I first moved to P-Town. I'd never lived by the ocean, and I wasn't sure if I could take that much horizon. And the storms, you know, the winds. And then we went through our first hurricane together, and it was hard, but when it was over I felt like, `Well, that wasn't so bad; I can live here.' Sitting in a radiation locker isn't fun . . . but it's a lot more fun than sitting in a singles bar. Maybe she's going to steady down and learn to live here."
"But it's still that much up in the air, is it? With four days to curtain? You have to give Kate an answer one way or another the following week."
"I know, I know. But it's the kind of problem where you can't push for an answer, no matter how urgent it is."
"Well, all I'm saying is, if she bails out, don't necessarily assume that you have to follow her—for keeps, I mean. Just because Ethan and I couldn't make it work on a commuter basis doesn't mean it can't be done. Look at that Philip Rose and his wife—and he's a writer, like Rhea. Quite a few spacers have made marriage with a groundhog work."
"You really think it's an option? After what happened to you?"
"Well, maybe not a great one. But it might be worth giving it a year and seeing how it works." He seemed to start to say something, and then changed his mind. "I'm just being selfish, bro. Kinergy is a good piece. I like working with you; I don't want to give it up. Losing partners is a habit I'm trying to break."
Rand thought about it, and shook his head. "I hear you. But I just can't see Rhea and I staying married that way. Besides, it's not fair to Colly to yo-yo her that way, uproot her every three months."
"There are other rotation schedules."
"Doesn't change anything. If Rhea goes, my choices are her—and Colly—or my work. So you can imagine how relieved I am at any hint that she might be willing to stay."
Again Jay seemed to choose his words carefully. "Rand? Suppose she does go? Suppose the wild sex after the flare was just the bomb-shelter reflex to celebrate not having been killed after all? Suppose your choice is Rhea or the Shimizu: what then?"
"That I can answer concisely and with absolute certainty. The answer is, it beats the shit out of me." He picked at a cuticle. "I really like this place. I really like this job. I really love working with you. But I really love Rhea and our kid. All I can tell you is, I'm praying it never comes up. And all hopeful omens are welcome."
15
Assorted Terran Locations
19 January 2065
Hidalgo Rodriguez woke from a troubled sleep. His nightmares had been stranger and more unsettling than even a full gourd of wheero could account for. But opening his eyes was less than no help. He shrieked, and sprang to his feet even faster than he had on that distant childhood day in his father's goat shed when he had learned empirically that a human sneeze means "Run for your life!" in Goat.
The shriek woke Amparo and the children; within seconds they were harmonizing with him.
Their homey familiar hovel was gone. It had been replaced, by something indescribable, almost literally unseeable. It was everywhere, on all sides, had no apparent openings, and no features that any of them could identify. The light by which they saw it had no detectable source. Their first and best guess was that it was some kind of magical trap.
This diagnosis caused Hidalgo to utter a bellow of what he hoped sounded like rage, and throw himself bodily at the nearest part of the thing he could reach. He did not really expect to break through, but he had to try. He struck hard with a hunched shoulder, rebounded and gasped. He had not produced an opening or even a dent—but part of the omnipresent . . . stuff . . . had suddenly became transparent.
A window . . .
Outside it Hidalgo saw the familiar landscape of his home region, with some odd alterations he was too busy to study. He grabbed up a rag, wrapped his fist in it, and smashed at the window. It emphatically refused to break. His hand was more equivocal;
he swore foully.
His son Julio followed Hidalgo's example, racing full tilt into the nearest wall to him. When nothing happened, he picked another spot and tried again. This time he was spectacularly successful: a door appeared in the stuff. He tested it; it worked just fine . . . and the entire Rodriguez clan joined him at high speed.
They stood outside the thing for a minute or so, all talking at the top of their lungs, none of them hearing a word—or noticing the sounds of similar loud "conversations" in the near distance.
The thing was still unidentifiable. It certainly did not look like a house, or even a building—not any that they had ever seen. It did not seem to have any straight lines or perpendiculars or right angles to it; there was no chimney.
Curiosity—and the growing realization that it was much hotter out here than it had been inside—finally caused them to reenter it.
They tried poking it some more. Finally Luz let out a scream. She had found a spot which caused it to grow a basin. Shouting at her to get away from it, Hidalgo cautiously approached the thing. For some reason, it had an extra faucet. He tried the one nearest him; its mechanism was unfamiliar to him, but not hard to figure out. Water came out, and swirled away.
Hidalgo gaped. His family had never, as far back as history recorded—yes, even unto his grandfather's day!—had access to running water in the home. He was rich! And there were two of the things. He tried the other one—and when he had grasped what it produced, he fainted dead away.
Hot water . . .
When he awoke, his new house was talking to him, telling him cheerfully of traffic conditions in a city he had only heard of. It showed him pictures. . . .
Hidalgo was a little comforted when he learned, shortly, that all of his neighbors in the hillside shanty-community were undergoing essentially identical experiences. So, elsewhere around the planet, were the family of Nkwame Van der Hoof, and their neighbors . . . the family of Algie Bent and their neighbors . . . the family of Trojan (his parents had named him after their hero) Khamela and their neighbors . . . the family of Lo Duc Tho and their neighbors . . . the list went on. Indeed, it was never completed.
A plague of houses seemed to be loose on the world. . . .
It took much longer for it to become apparent—and longer for it to be believed by anyone with an education—that people who lived in those toadstool houses could not get sick.
PART SIX
16
The Shimizu Hotel
20 January 2065
Jay was watching the first full tech run-through of Kinergy, and wistfully praying God to strike him dead, when the alarm went off.
"FLARE WARNING—CLASS THREE—"
"Again?" someone groaned.
"—REPEAT, CLASS THREE! THIS IS A SAFETY EMERGENCY: ALL GUESTS MUST GO AS QUICKLY AND CALMLY AS POSSIBLE TO THE POOL AREA, AND REMAIN THERE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. THERE IS NO CAUSE FOR ALARM AS LONG AS—"
"Jesus, Class Three!" Francine said. "All right, everybody: drop what you're doing and move. Quietly! Rand, Andrew, kill the holo and sound—"
It vanished, and the theater reappeared.
"—PLEASE REPORT ALOUD WHEN YOU HAVE LEF'T FOR THE POOL; THE SHIMIZU WILL HEAR YOU AND NOT WASTE TIME SEARCHING FOR YOU—"
"Nova Dance Company, all members, leaving the theater now," Jay barked.
Andrew, the tech director who had replaced the murdered Nika, was a spacer: he came popping out the hatch from backstage like a cork leaving a champagne bottle. Jay suddenly remembered that Colly was back there with Rand, and headed for the tech hole to see if his brother needed any help. On the way it dawned on him that his troubles were over, or at least postponed: the company—and everyone else in the Shimizu—would all still be in the pool when the curtain was supposed to go up on Kinergy. Rescheduling after the emergency would take days. The Sword of Damocles had extended its expiry date.
Rand and Colly were emerging from the tech hole as he reached it. Colly seemed frightened, but not panicked; Rand was looking grim. "Honey," he said to her, "Uncle Jay is going to take you to the pool. Mom and I will join you there in two seconds."
"Daddy, no—"
"Take her, Jay."
"Rhea will be fine, bro," Jay began, but Rand cut him off.
"I tried to phone. Not accepting calls."
"At worst, somebody in a rad-suit will fetch her—"
"It's only a little out of the way—take Colly." He kicked off and fired his thrusters. Jay found himself reassuring Colly, which helped calm himself; they jaunted for the pool together.
So did most of the population. The crowd of course thickened as it neared the center of the hotel. Some had a festive, holiday spirit; some were manic; some were silent and terrified; some were being dragged, protesting bitterly, by employees in bulky anti-radiation gear. Those whose protests became loud were sedated. Every corridor seemed to have a calm, competent employee whose sole job was to keep traffic flowing, and another who said reassuring things to anyone who would listen. Colly was actually enjoying herself by the time they reached the pool area. A smiling employee gave her and Jay ear-buttons to insert; at once a calm voice was murmuring instructions in their ears. "The pool is nearly empty now. When you are told to enter, do so promptly. Look for your last initial in the large green letters on the pool wall, and jaunt to that area so we can sort you out. Look for an employee with red arm- and leg-bands. If you have any emergency—first aid, medicine, need for a toilet, a missing loved one—report it to that employee—" and so on. The whole thing was well thought-out, well rehearsed, and worked wonders in holding down the general confusion; the Shimizu had been doing this, successfully, every eleven years for the last half-century. In under a minute, all of the pool's large doors opened at once, and they were told to enter. The ear-buttons became strident on the subject of not stopping in doorways to gawk. Jay and Colly were swept along with the flow, and found themselves inside the pool, with hundreds of chattering guests.
Jay looked around, located a green "P" on the wall a few hundred meters away, and took Colly there, breathing a sigh of relief that both Rand's and Rhea's last names happened to end with the same letter. "We'll wait here for your folks, pumpkin," he told the child. "This is gonna be lots more fun than a dumb old rad locker, huh?"
"Sure," she agreed, counting the house. "Wow! Kids I don't even know! There's one that looks my age—over there, see? Uncle Jay, can I go say hi?"
"Later, honey. Let's wait for your parents, okay? We've got three days, you know."
"Oh . . . okay." Suddenly she was horror-struck. "Uncle Jay—what about the show?"
He grinned. "The concert, you mean. Colly, do schoolkids back on Earth still get `snow days'?"
She blinked. "Oh. No—but Mommy told me about them. You mean like `sunspot days,' when the school system crashes, and you don't have to study."
"That's right. Well, your Dad and I, and the whole company, are about to have three `sunspot days' in a row. And believe me, we can all use the rest."
"Oh. Hey, well that's great, then. Boy, it's weird to be in here without any water . . ."
"That's right, I hear this is your favorite place, isn't it?" Jay said absently. His watch said there were a little less than five minutes left before the doors would seal; he was scanning all the door areas at once for Rand and Rhea. At this point the majority of the new arrivals were being dragged by no-nonsense employees; Jay tried to mentally subtract them from the view, and so he didn't see Colly's parents right away.
Then he did. They and Duncan were just being released by the trio of chasers who had hauled them in. They must have come peaceably, for they were all still conscious—but as Jay opened his mouth to call Colly's attention to their arrival, he noted their respective body languages, integrated them, and closed his mouth again. Something was wrong. . . .
He squinted. Duncan seemed to be saying something—whether to Rand or Rhea or both was unclear. Whatever it was required gestures to get across. Rand's reply was so emphatic th
at even at that distance Jay could hear it, though not what was being said, amid the general din. Rhea and Duncan both answered at once and at length. This time Rand's reply was inaudible. A few seconds' pause . . . and Duncan spun around and started to jaunt away. Rand thrusted after him, overtook him, grappled with him, both their voices were heard shouting, Rhea chased them doing some shouting of her own—
For some reason nine groundhogs out of ten who attempt to fight in space make the same mistake: intuiting that a straight punch will push them away from their opponent, they instinctively go for an uppercut. But this only sends them sliding past him, toward his feet. Spacers know this, and are generally ready to meet the descending chin with an upthrust knee. Jay saw his brother begin an uppercut, and winced in anticipation. Rand massed much more than Jay—a terrible disadvantage under these conditions.
—but for some reason Duncan did not make the obvious counter. He took the punch, failed to lift his knee, and he and Rand went past each other like tectonic plates. That was all they had time for; the three chasers who'd fetched them here had already left in search of remaining stragglers, so it was a couple of the ear-button vendors who handled the job of sedating Rand and Duncan and, since she was still shouting, Rhea. In seconds, all three were at peace or a convincing imitation. The whole brief incident had gone largely unnoticed in all the general confusion.
Starmind Page 15